Eighty miles from Essington the Skeena in its flight to the sea makes its first plunge into the Cascade Mountains, and its entrance is indescribably grand. No pen or brush can do justice to the beauties of the Kitselas Cañon. At its mouth we are in a broad, deep basin, as if the river had felt depressed as it passed through the quarter-mile narrow gorge and had here spread itself out to breathe and rest before it started anew its downward journey to the sea. It was late in the afternoon, and the western sun threw long shadows of the lofty sky-crowned perpendicular walls of the left-hand side of the cañon over against the rocky islets and ragged, rock-bound eastern shore. Once we have entered, there is no faltering; "lining it out" is impossible here, and on and on the boat labors and climbs, twisting and turning through the narrow, tortuous channel. A quick eye and a steady nerve must command the wheel now, for a turn too much or too little would be fatal. One instinctively feels that the "Water of Terrors" is the proper name for this river, and with that feeling comes the other--that it was never intended for navigation. [Illustration: A SKEENA RIVER SALMON CANNERY.] After four days' grinding over sand bars and pounding against rocks we tie up for repairs. One of the boilers had sprung a leak which could be neglected no longer. The delay of thirty-six hours was not without compensation, for the country about was open, and proved a relief after the long ride through the high-walled river from the sea to the cañon. The banks were low or moderately high and of gravel or sand bluffs, and we could look off over a landscape broken here and there by solitary peaks or clustered mountains, their summits always covered with ice and snow. To the far east were the pure white peaks of the Five Virgins, their summits glistening under the bright sun. Even the character of the vegetation had changed, and the dense forests of somber firs, spruces, and cedars of the lower river had given way to great cottonwoods and underbrush of hazel and alder. In the afternoon we climbed a bluff near the river, from which we could look off over a country that was wild and extremely picturesque. To one side of us could be seen a great mountain, its summit covered by a mighty glacier whose blue-white ice gleamed and glistened in the sun. And there was no mistaking the power of the sun that day; its warm rays being especially welcome after some weeks of the cold, depressing gloom and fog of the coast.